


It's a New Year (Careful What You Pack)

by anthologia



Series: The Known, the Unknown, and the Under-known [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Coraline (2009), Coraline - Neil Gaiman, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Feels, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, Mental Breakdown, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, kind of, or very little comfort anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why would you go back there?” other Dick asked him, his hands gently carding through Tim’s hair. “They’re only going to hurt you again.”</p><p>Tim stared up at him dully from where his head was resting on the other Dick’s lap. He’s stayed too long, he knew he had. He should have left – escaped – the first day, but he looked at Kon and Bart and Bruce and he just couldn’t. Now it’s been almost a week, and he knew, he knew. He’d started feeling more exhausted when he woke up than he did when he went to bed. The color was draining out of his skin. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to start losing pieces of himself he’d never get back. “And you aren’t?”</p><p>“Of course not.” Dick leaned down and kissed his forehead. “It’s not going to hurt at all. You just have to stay here and let us love you. You’ll be happy, and then you won’t need to feel anything ever again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a New Year (Careful What You Pack)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Careful What You Pack" by They Might Be Giants, originally written for the film Coraline. Prompts that took me forever to fill: this one. Requested by satire_please on tumblr as an expansion of an idea I had, the text of which is below.
> 
> I might have seen a fic on AO3 that was tagged with Tim Drake and the Other Mother from Coraline that I couldn’t read due to language barrier and now I’m just like
> 
> ~*~IMAGINE~*~ it takes place after Dick replaces Tim with Damian, but Tim stays there longer and notices this little door in his room that wasn’t there before and crawls through it to the Other Manor  
> where Other Bruce and Other Kon and Other Bart and his parents are still alive  
> and Other Damian is this sweet little kid who looks up to him as a big brother and wants to spend time with him  
> and Other Dick is all like “TIM LET’S GO PATROL, YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY ROBIN <3″  
> and even Other Jason is there, not being an asshole  
> and everyone basically smothers him with love and acceptance  
> and then later that night there’s a horrible banging in Tim’s room and everyone rushes in to see Tim just destroying a piece of his wall and crying.

_“Why don’t you have your own key on this side?” asked Coraline._

_“There is only one key. Only one door,” said the other father._

There’s only one door, one key. _She_ has the key, but he has the door, and the second he’s scrambled through the door, he shuts it and starts clawing at it with his bare hands. She has the key but _he has the door_. If he destroys the door, there’s no more portal to come through. No more path to the Wayne Manor, to this world.

Tim may have honed his body into a weapon but his hands alone aren’t enough. A well-placed kick splinters the wood. Something else – an axe, a crowbar – would be best, but he can’t afford to leave the door unguarded long enough to find one. Tim looks around his room, and his eyes catch on sturdy lamp that’s probably an heirloom. It’ll do. He strips the lampshade off it and swings the base like a bat, aiming it at the hinges on the little door. It does a decent job of knocking them out of place, enough so that he can dig his fingernails in where the wood’s starting to fall apart and start tearing chunks out of it.

It’s getting harder to grasp hold of the wood, blood from his hands starting to make the material slippery. One of the hinges detaches from the door entirely, but he can’t stop yet. Not until he’s completely dismantled it –

“What’s – oh my god, _Tim!_ ” Dick’s launched himself across the room before Tim can even turn around, grabbing hold of Tim’s wrists and pulling them away from his work. He must have just come in from patrol because he’s still wearing Batman’s suit. “Tim, stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

_(“Why would you go back there?” other Dick asked him, his hands gently carding through Tim’s hair. “They’re only going to hurt you again.”_

_Tim stared up at him dully from where his head was resting on the other Dick’s lap. He’s stayed too long, he knew he had. He should have left – escaped – the first day, but he looked at Kon and Bart and Bruce and he just **couldn’t**. Now it’s been almost a week, and he knew, he **knew**. He’d started feeling more exhausted when he woke up than he did when he went to bed. The color was draining out of his skin. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to start losing pieces of himself he’d never get back. “And you aren’t?”_

_“Of course not.” Dick leaned down and kissed his forehead. “It’s not going to hurt at all. You just have to stay here and let us love you. You’ll be happy, and then you won’t need to feel anything ever again.”)_

Tim struggles _hard_. Dick might be Batman now, but Tim knows he _can’t_ fail at this. He manages to throw Dick off long enough to rip the other hinge out of the door. The only thing left is the doorknob.

He lets Dick grab him again long enough to steal a Batarang. Damian chooses then to appear in the doorway, his usual arrogance melting off his face at the sight before him, and that gives Tim enough of a distraction to throw Dick again and start carving the wood around the doorknob with the sharp end of the weapon.

“Damian, get me a medical kit and some sedatives.” Dick reaches for him again, and Tim kicks out. His grip on the batarang is uncertain and slippery from the blood on his fingers, making him cut himself about as often as he’s getting the wood, but it’s working. He just needs a few more seconds.

“But – “ Damian, grants him the distraction he needs by just being so painfully off-balance and _young_ that Dick has to catch his eye and sharpen his tone into the Batman voice to get a reaction.

“Damian, _now!_ ”

Tim yanks the doorknob out with enough force that he goes stumbling backwards. He _wants_ to keep going, keep tearing at what’s left of the door until there’s nothing but splinters, but Dick’s pulling him back, and Tim’s not sure he could get away this time if he tried.

The batarang is wrenched out of his grip, and Dick pins him down again by the wrists. “ _Tim_. Please. Just. Calm down, okay? Let us help you.” Tim strains his hearing, but there’s no tell-tale skittering coming from the other side of the wall. Nothing trying to get through. He thinks… it might be over.

Damian’s quiet footsteps approach and stop somewhere to the right of them, but all Tim can see is the terrified look on Dick’s face staring down at him. “I don’t want to have to sedate you,” Dick says, “but I will. If I let you go, are you going to stay still or are you going to freak out again?”

Tim stares Dick in the eye and lets himself go limp. See, no resistance. He’ll be a good boy from now on.

Dick lets out a breath and releases Tim’s wrists so he can accept the medical kit from Damian, who’s standing straight and blank-faced. Before all of this happened, Tim would have thought he didn’t care, but now that he’s used to seeing the normal kid reactions on that face, he notices the slight widening of his eyes and clench in his jaw that says he’s trying very _hard_ to look like he doesn’t care. Tim guesses even baby assassins aren’t used to seeing people have what looks like a psychotic break.

(Damian – _other_ Damian – had been… nicer. Happy to have Tim as a brother. It was strangely pleasant, he’d thought, having a little brother who looked up to him. Who wanted to spend time with him and asked to be taught things Tim knew. Tim thinks maybe he would have made a good big brother, given half a chance and a little brother who didn’t loathe the sight of him.)

“I’m going to use some local anesthetic first,” Dick says carefully, grabbing Tim’s attention back. “While I’m doing that, do you want to tell me what happened?”

There’s a laugh bubbling up from somewhere in his throat. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Why don’t you tell me anyway?”

Tim turns his head to the side and refuses to look at Dick. If he does, he knows he’s going to see the other Dick’s black button eyes sparkling at him, other Dick’s claws sinking into his skin instead of the slight bite of a hypodermic needle.

_(“It’s okay, little brother,” other Dick had said as he raked his overgrown fingernails through Tim’s hair. It felt like a gentle caress, but they came away bloody. “Just relax. We’re going to take care of you.”_

_Damian set a box on the table next to them. Tim didn’t have to look to see what was in it. A needle and a pair of black button eyes.)_

“ – Tim? Tim, hey. Stay with me.”

_(Kon – other Kon – pulled Tim close and settled him against his chest. “You can be with us forever. We’re never going to leave you.”)_

He blinks. Dick’s giving him a strained smile. “There you are. You’re kind of freaking me out a _lot_ right now, little brother. It would help me if you’d talk to me. About anything. Okay?”

“I.” He licks his lips. “I didn’t want to come back.”

_(It was like a click in his head. A self-preservation instinct kicking in belatedly, and he was thrashing and screaming while other Kon grabbed for his arms, trying to hold him in place. But it wasn’t Kon, not **really** , Kon would be able to keep him still with TTK, and this one was thrown off when Tim shoved an arm against his throat and scrambled away. _

_“I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t, I thought I could – “_

_Other Bruce’s stare was pitch-perfect, the deeply disappointed look in his face stabbing painfully into Tim’s chest. “Tim, we talked about this.”_

_“They don’t want you back,” other Dick said. “They picked Damian. They don’t need you anymore.”_

_Other Damian slipped his hand into Tim’s. “You have a place here.”)_

“ – wrong with Drake?”

“I think he’s having flashbacks, he’s not tracking – _fuck!_ I can’t help him like this. Damian, give me something to calm him down.”

_(It would have been so easy. Like lying down to sleep and just never waking up. But there was that little spark of instinct screaming at him to run, run and never look back.)_

Tim struggles weakly against the urge to sleep, but Dick’s there, petting his hair gently and talking to him in a soothing tone. “It’s okay, Timmy, don’t fight it. Just go to sleep, okay? I’ll be right here for you when you wake up.”

His eyes slip shut.

 

 

_“If they have left you, Coraline, it must be because they became bored of you, or tired. Now, I will never become bored of you, and I will never abandon you._

_“You will always be safe here with me."_

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in my fics and want more, I have an account at syntactition.tumblr.com where I have bits of stories that are currently in the works and other ficlets and stories that haven't made their way to AO3.


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